The art of apology

In Jonathan Dee’s sixth novel, A Thousand Pardons, a stay-at-home mother goes back to work after her husband’s dramatic breakdown. In her new role, she cultivates her gift for convincing powerful men to apologize on a grand scale. Dee likens this act to an ancient religious ritual.Helen is forced to return to the workforce after her...

Crisis management in an age of public mistakes and apologies

Americans follow a familiar script when a powerful man falls from grace. We’re shocked, though news of such-and-such tweeting his private parts or engaging in an affair may secretly fill us with glee—especially when he’s forced to confess after a strategy of “deny, deny, deny.” Is it human nature to relish watching the train wreck of a public collapse? In Jonathan...

Posted by Eliza on January 23, 2013

A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan DeeRandom House • $26 • ISBN 9780812993219Published March 12, 2013Jonathan Dee's The Privileges, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was one of my favorite novels of 2010. So I was thrilled when I learned that Dee's sixth novel, A Thousand Pardons, would be published this year.Like The Privileges, this novel tells the story of a wealthy couple. But here the couple...

Well Read Column by Robert Weibezahl

“Let me tell you about the very rich,” Fitzgerald wrote. “They are different from you and me.” This maxim, whether or not it is true, has been the guiding principle behind everything from Edith Wharton’s society novels to much of Aaron Spelling’s television opus, and it is also at the heart of Jonathan Dee’s new novel, The Privileges. Adam and Cynthia...